


Why We Care

by Arenoptara



Series: Hell [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hell, Anal Sex, Decapitation, Insanity, M/M, Self Loathing, Suicide, eye gore, non romantic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:59:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1540217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arenoptara/pseuds/Arenoptara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an accident that killed his best friend Marco, a distraught Jean commits suicide and wakes up to find himself in Hell where he meets the mysterious Eren Jeager who has been walking Hell for 200 years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why We Care

The last thing he remembered before the blackness took over was Marco's face. It had been seventeen days since he actually saw that face alive and smiling. The one he saw was dark and sad, staring at Jean, asking him why it had come to this end. Jean had seen the cut along his forehead, the way the blood had fallen in beautiful serene waves around his eyes, between his eyes, down his nose and cheeks, and coming to a point on his chin before dripping off into his clothes. The thing about head wounds was that the blood was vicious, unruly. It kept flowing with no hope of stopping.

The other cuts on Marco's skin, the ones that had littered his arms and shoulders and torso, they looked more like someone stapled him. They were little things, bright shiny red, but not really flowing. And the blood congealed quickly. If one had blurry vision, like Jean had had when he saw Marco's body that way with his own eyes, in the flesh, it looked like someone had simply added more freckles, red ones. Marco's little sister had done that a lot with markers when Marco babysat. Sometimes Jean had joined in.

That face was the reason the blackness had come. Jean found himself on the edge of a precipice. That's what he called it to make himself feel better, like what he was doing was overcoming the last great hurdle of his life. A great precipice where he could see the entire world below his feet, even the mountains. Having wings would make it more beautiful, but then he could fly away, when the whole point was to hit the bottom. Without wings, once he took that step, there was no turning away.

It had been hot, sweltering—beginning of July in New Mexico. The building was Marco's old apartment building, because Jean felt that was fitting. It soared in the air seven floors. Jean stood on the side above Marco's window—it was down a few floors, but he was still directly above it. No one was home, so they wouldn't see him fall. Maisie, Marco's sister, wouldn't have to see her brother's best friend fall down down to the pavement. She might see him when the sirens screamed and she went to see what all the fuss was. But Jean would be gone by then. He wouldn't have to worry about it.

He wouldn't have to worry about anything else anymore. He had spent the last seventeen days worrying, crying, cursing his existence. It had all been a joke. One of those stupid birthday things that made best friends realize why they hated and loved each other at the same time. But technology had failed him, and he had to sit and watch as their car smashed into that wall, as the glass exploded in this torrent of fire and wind. He pulled Marco out before the flames engulfed the car. He pressed his hands against Marco's chest, and breathed into his blood-tinged lips, but the boy was dead the moment he hit that wall, the moment his head hit the steering wheel. That shard of glass he pulled from the long cut on Marco's head had probably kissed his brain. Jean threw it away as hard as he could.

Only when the others arrived did he realize he knew he too was bleeding. That had been so irrelevant—in the light that his best friend was dead because of him. If Jean was lucky, he would have died right beside him, and the fire would have eaten the flesh off their bones and left them these black charred skeletons. No worries. No time to think about worrying.

The day before Marco's funeral, Jean had slept in a ball, his mouth biting on his pillow, and he sobbed in the most ugly way. When his mom heard him scream, she'd come in and turned on the lights and there was blood all over the covers because Jean had dragged his nails up and down his shins until they bled. So he went to Marco's funeral with this itchy pain in his legs that made him want to cry because it wasn't nearly as bad as it should have been. Everyone watched him, stony face, go up to Marco's coffin after the service, before they lowered it into the ground, and just throw his body over it for five minutes specifically asking God to send him down to Hell because that was what he deserved.

Murderer. Not on purpose, but Jean had murdered Marco and now he could dub that title. It made it easier to convince himself to step off the edge of that building. He was just taking another life. It just happened to be his, but there was a bittersweet taste to that, wasn't there? When his foot did hover over the edge into the air, and the other one followed, he apologized to everyone he knew because there was no sweetness in this. Only darkness. The kind that would fill his soul, and the kind that he would impose upon those still alive after he breathed his last.

Marco's face hovered in his vision. His body lost feeling. Maybe he was still falling when he blacked out, or Marco blocked the feeling of hitting the ground. Even though what Jean had done to him, what Jean did to himself, was unforgivable, Marco was the kind of person to at least try.

When Jean woke up, that days later feeling in his intact body, he was sure the suicide had failed. That he had hit the ground in just the right way, or God had sent an angel to sweep him up. But the world wasn't filled with harsh artificial light. There was no smell of antiseptic and those floral scented things his mom sometimes plugged into the wall because Jean liked the smell of flowers. Instead the world was dark, lit by the faintest flickering torch light, and the ground was rock. Warm, like molten rock flowed hundreds of feet beneath him.

The first thing he heard—not his own breathing—was a scream. The kind that could never be anything good. It sounded female. Jean leaped to his feet—the second sound: his feet scraping across the floor. The room was small, maybe twenty square feet. Near the torch was an archway leading into another fire lit corridor. If this was Hell, so far it wasn't bad. He moved one foot, and then the other, until he hit into a normal stride. He stopped in the corridor and looked both ways—it never ended. Both directions went on forever and ever, lit by those dim torches.

The scream came again and then he heard his third sound: his breathing, finally. It came in chunky gulps, like his body had just suddenly remembered breathing was necessary. But if this was the afterlife, surely that wasn't necessary. This body was an illusion. He was a spirit? That's what they had taught. Or maybe that was only Heaven. Where they sat in ivory towers in golden cities surrounded by rainbow waterfalls and constant blue skies. Serenaded by bird songs. Was Jean to be serenaded by the grating screams of Hell's residents?

He started off towards the owner of that scream. It helped that she screamed again, this time the scream choked off with blood and that painful gurgling. Jean found another archway, another room. There was a girl in there, blonde, really short, her bloody hands on the wall—her fingernails were basically gone, ripped away from clawing the wall. She screamed again, but there was nothing attacking her, nothing tearing her open. No, she just sat there, forehead against the bloody wall, screaming like Death was running its scythe along her spine.

“H-hello,” Jean mumbled—it came out dry, like he hadn't drunk water in days. They needed some time to get warmed up. Like his breathing. Which was still uneven, because he was consciously thinking about it. “Hello?”

The girl ignored him. Every thirty seconds she screamed, the same drawn-out cry of agony. One of her hands curled into the wall, an index finger picking at a white claw mark. With every stroke, her body shuddered.

Jean backed out of the room and then flattened himself against the wall of the corridor. Trying to compose himself, he stumbled down the corridor some more. It turned---into a brightly lit, all-white hallway made of plastic. The light came from uncased holes in the sides, bright as sunlight, but cold as ice. Jean rubbed along his arms, but the more he did so, the colder he got. It got cold enough his breath formed a cloud.

There was another doorway here—and whimpering. He swallowed and turned, standing in the archway. The room was the same size as the other two, but made of the plastic, light poking in from holes in the ceiling. A blonde boy was sitting on the ground, his knees brought up, hiding his face, rocking back and forth. He was saying something, but too quickly and quietly for Jean to understand.

“Please,” Jean said. “Can you hear me?”

The boy stopped rocking and talking.

“Yes, yes, you can hear me,” Jean said taking a couple steps forward.

What he saw next chilled the marrow in his bones. The boy looked up, and once he had pushed the long blonde hair from his face, Jean saw black bloody holes where the eyes should have been. The boy “stared” at Jean for a few seconds before he resumed his incoherent babbling.

Jean ran out before he stopped breathing. “Shit, that's going to be me. That's going to be me.” His fingers came up and knotted in his hair. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Marco . . .”

He heard footsteps and gazed up quickly, terrified for the next resident of this place. But the newcomer looked quite normal, about 17 like Jean, striding confidently and quietly along the corridor. When he breathed, his breath did not form a cloud. He didn't appear affected by the cold in any way. He merely walked, green-teal eyes pointed ahead, shaggy brown hair ruffling with an invisible breeze.

“Hello?” Jean asked weakly.

The boy looked over at Jean as he passed, forehead crinkling, eyes shining in confusion, but he kept on walking until he disappeared, taken by the bright lights drowning the corridor in the distance.

It took a few seconds for Jean's legs to remember how to walk, but when they did, he started after the boy. He had looked at Jean with intelligence. Even if he couldn't speak, maybe there was another way to communicate. Whatever the case, Jean had to find out. He kept on going, pushing faster and harder with every ticking minute, until he was basically running.

An itchy pain started in his shins. At first he ignored it, but then it came again in a huge painful wave and Jean tripped, falling towards the ground. His chin hit the ground, and there was a snap in his neck. The blackness came again.

He woke up with a scream, because it felt like iron hands were squeezing his throat and his brain. And then there was another snap and the pain faded away. He was lying face-up on the ground, staring at the lattice ceiling, at the sunshine filtering in and making him so cold. Had he died?

But this was Hell, so he just came back. No one could die in the afterlife.

Jean rolled over onto his side and then pushed himself up with his knees. His hand lay flat against the wall for support. Again the breathing thing came in one painful gasp before it steadied into normality. Then he kept on going, his hand moving along the wall with every step until his body recovered his strength.

The corridor turned, this time widening to a huge chasm of white and black swirling marble. A great crevice separated the two sides of the room, connected by the tiniest stone bridge. Jean walked up towards the edge and took a peek at the bottom. It was a sidewalk. A street. Cars and pedestrians. The exact same one he'd fallen towards. Jean threw himself back onto the ground, hot anxiety rippling through his body.

That was when he wished he hadn't prayed to God to send him to Hell.

When the panic subsided, his limbs unfreezing, he could get back to his feet.

Someone was moving across the bridge, sideways because having one foot in front of another while facing forward was too dangerous on that bridge. It was the brunet. He had his arms out, one in front, one in back, to keep his balance like a tightrope walker with a long pole. When he got to the other side, he lightly bounced onto broad solid ground.

By the time Jean got to the bridge, the boy was gone through another archway, another corridor maybe. Using the same methods, Jean got across, keeping his eyes up for fear he'd see that street down below. As soon as he hit the other side, he broke into another run.

The next archway opened up into a forest. Bright, cool, with birds singing songs through the white tall trunks. Jean heard the sound of a stream and headed towards it. He saw its luscious cold waves rolling over the rocks. Tears sprinkling the corners of his eyes, he knelt down and cupped some in his hands. But just as he did, he heard a little giggle and looked upstream.

Another blonde, hair in a bun, was crouching over the stream, staring at her two bloody hands. The blood steadily dripped down into the stream. Jean watched as she slammed the bloody hands into the stream. The water at Jean's feet turned a faint crimson color. Jean dropped the water in his hands and backed away into a tree. His hands gripped the bark and pulled himself around back to the path.

That's when he saw the boy, crouching down and holding a rock in his hand. There was no blood. No insanity. Just the boy looking at the rock. Desperately, Jean walked over to him. “Can you hear me?”

The boy looked up. The rock dropped back to the ground. Slowly he unraveled his legs and stood up. The boy wasn't as tall as Jean. His emotionless eyes gave Jean a quick up-down.

“Please,” Jean breathed.

“Please what?” the boy asked.

Jean almost fainted from happiness. “You can hear me.”

“Everyone can hear everything here,” the boy said. He glanced over Jean's shoulder, in the direction of the stream-girl. His pupils dilated. When he snapped out of whatever he was in, he looked back at Jean, pupils contracted to small dots now. “Unless you block it out, like me. You're new here. How long have you been here?”

“T-twenty minutes?” Time was mostly lost on him after a few minutes.

The boy smiled. “I've been here for two hundred and two years, seven months, sixteen hours, and four minutes.”

Jean blinked. “You've . . . two hundred years? And you haven't gone crazy?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. But you will. I can always tell. You're not worth my time.” He turned but Jean grabbed his arm. 

When the boy looked back, eyes menacing, Jean backed away, hands up. “Sorry, sorry.”

But the boy laughed then. “ _Sorry?_ There's a word I haven't heard in two hundred years. I almost forgot it existed.” He fixed the ruffles on his sleeve Jean had created. “What's your name?”

“Jean Kirschtein.”

“Eren Jaeger.”

“How have you lasted so long?” Jean asked.

Eren squinted his eyes and looked up at the canopy of trees. “People with my background usually have a better time adjusting here. You make Hell your bitch,” he said with a grin. “That's what I did. I've never met anyone who's lasted as long as me without either going psycho or joining the Legion.” He started walking away again, but this time lifted a hand and wiggled two fingers, motioning for Jean to follow him along the path. He walked so effortlessly along the rocky, branch-littered ground. Along the occasional corpse-littered ground—animals, with their insides splayed open, green goop oozing from their orifices.

“And . . .” Jean cleared his throat. His throat was still dry. He needed water desperately. “And what's your background?”

“What's yours?” Eren asked, with a tone that commanded Jean to answer or else Hell would be the last thing on his mind.

Jean's shins began to itch again. His hand turned to fists to keep from scratching them. “I killed my best friend. And myself.”

Eren tilted his head to the side and gave Jean a sidelong look. “Must not have been your best if you killed them.”

“It was an accident!” Jean snapped louder than he meant to. He quieted down a little. “An accident. I would never have hurt Marco . . . never . . .”

Understanding entered Eren's eyes, but he said nothing. The two of them pressed on through the forest until they came to a rock wall, and another archway. Eren went in without hesitating, but Jean took several seconds to prepare himself. On the other side was a desert plateau, with no plants or water in sight, but dotted with the occasional resident. Eren was a few yards ahead. Maybe he got his darker skin was spending time here, even if it wasn't the real sun. Jean jogged to catch up with him, a line of sweat already forming on his forehead.

Eren casually pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the ground—a nearby man lunged out at it like a wild beast and draped it over his body. Eren's body was one that belonged in Heaven. The perfect contours of his muscles, the faint outlines of a six-pack on his abs, broad shoulders, and a well-pronounced collarbone. He stretched his arms behind him and then sighed contentedly. He caught Jean staring and smiled, showing the tiniest sliver of white teeth. “And what about you?”

“What?” Jean said, blinking too much.

“I get it if you don't want to. But there's no reason to be self-conscious here. They aren't.” Eren nodded another person they passed—it was an elderly woman, stark naked, slamming her fists on the cracked dirt and shaking her legs, laughing maniacally.

Jean swallowed uncomfortably. “Doesn't that bother you?”

“No,” Eren scoffed. “After two hundred years nothing bothers me.”

Jean looked out ahead. It didn't seem to end, the desert. And the farther they got, the less people they passed. “Where's the end?”

“Miles and miles away. No one has the will or determination to walk all the way to the end. Those like me who do,” Eren said, poking his thumb in his chest, “get to see all the little pleasantries Hell has to offer. The place isn't completely with out it. They reward those who are worthy.”

Jean wanted to leave, because the way Eren treated Hell was sick. But how else was life going to be here? That was the only purpose. Pain and sick twisted things. Jean had chosen this life, and he would just have to accept that. Besides, Eren was the only one who could provide conversation, and that comforted Jean. He had to cling to this boy like a baby to its mother.

“The Legion are usually in these places, so you do have to watch out for that. They don't like anyone outside their ranks.” Eren glanced at Jean and when he saw the confusion, he explained. “Demons. Lucifer's warriors. They tried to recruit me. I almost accepted. But then I realized I didn't come here to play house with the devil. I didn't do what I did on Earth for him or for any of them. I did it for the people I killed.” Eren stopped and Jean stopped with him. Eren narrowed his eyes. “They called me a monster up there. Because they didn't understand what I was doing was ridding the world of the real monsters. There is no justice in that system. In any of those systems. Those who break the laws of the universe have to pay. I was willing to give them their reward.”

Suddenly Eren broke into a lighthearted smile and punched Jean in the shoulder. He kept walking. “When I was young I called them 'cereal killers' like there was granola involved or something.”

Jean's face went white. “What?”

Eren sighed. “That whole spiel and you still don't understand. I answered your question.”

“You were a goddamned serial killer, is that it?” Jean asked angrily. “You're only a teenager.”

“So?” Eren waved him away. “I saw a girl get kidnapped by human traffickers. When I killed them I realized that was the right thing to do. For anyone who would ever do such terrible evil--” He grabbed Jean's shirt and brought him close. “--things. Mikasa. They took Mikasa. And she joined me. Together we killed them all.”

Jean put his hand over Eren's wrist and pried his fingers off.

Eren turned away. “I still haven’t found her. Two hundred years and I haven't found her. I'd like to think that after I died she found a way to make peace with God. Or maybe she's just really good at hiding.”

 _What the fuck,_ Jean thought. Trembling, he pulled his shirt up and over his head. He stared at it, the blue cotton fibers—some dark blue from sweat. And then he dropped it to the ground. Even if he shouldn't feel self-conscious, he did, because he was pasty white and his muscles were hardly defined at all, and his stomach was just one flat piece of skin, no ab muscles, nothing. His arms came forward, trying to block it from Eren's view somehow.

“It feels better, doesn't it?” Eren said with the tiniest of smiles. “Come on. I want to see your face when we reach the end.”

They continued walking. A bead of sweat finally dislodged from his hairline and dripped along the side of his face. He wondered if that Mikasa was indeed up in Heaven, and if Marco was there too. If they had met and were talking about their old lives, how they knew these two boys named Jean and Eren.

“Fine,” Eren suddenly said.

“What?”

Eren rolled his eyes. “I said fine, I'll help you. But you have to be willing to give it everything you have. Or else you'll end up becoming like those others you saw. Or caving and joining the Legion. Like all the others I've tried to help. We might see one of them, actually.” His voice drifted off into nothing, his eyes glowing in hot sharp memories of people he'd met in Hell. The ones who started out like Jean and in the end, failed.

“Unless of course you want to try to go your own way, but I can promise you exactly what will happen. You're weak. Without me, you're going to die.” Eren laughed. “Whatever the fuck that means here.”

Jean stared down at his shoes. “Why do you care?”

“Either you leave right now or you don't ask me that question ever again,” Eren said sharply.

They continued walking silently, and Jean decided not to ask the question again. Instead he muttered, “I'm not weak.”

“Then prove it to me,” Eren said. His feet came to an abrupt halt on the ground and he faced Jean, eyes dark and angry, lip curled.

“W-what? Fight you? Is that what you're asking?” Jean asked in shock.

Eren spread his arms out. “I'll even go easy on you.”

Jean's breathing quickened. He held up his fists. “Okay. Okay.” Amusement gleamed out of Eren's eyes, and that ticked Jean off, so he aimed a fist at Eren's face. Which Eren easily dodged. His hand smacked into Jean's ear, his leg slammed into Jean's stomach, and then when Jean doubled over, Eren double-fisted into his back and Jean fell face-first onto the ground.

“You said you would go easy!” Jean spit, lifting himself up.

Eren stared down at him. “I lied.”

Angrily, Jean jumped to his feet and tried to hit him again, and after a brief one-sided scuffle, ended up on his back, head dizzy, vision swimming, bright sun blinding him. He threw an arm over his eyes and waited for the sun splotches on the darkness of his eyelids to vanish before he got back up.

“So that makes me weak?” Jean said. “Not being able to physically fight. You've had hundreds of years to become an expert. I never fought anyone in my life.”

“That's not what makes you weak,” Eren said. He shook his head. “Forget it. Do you want to see what's at the end of this desert or not?”

“You said it was miles,” Jean reminded him.

Eren chewed on his lip.

When Jean understood, he straightened up and took a long deep breath through his nostrils. “Fine. Let's go.”

Eren winked at him.

The next thing he remembered was a shadow above him, and the more he blinked, the more it took shape until he realized it was Eren hovering above him. He took Jean's hand and helped him to his feet. A sharp pain singed his lungs and throat. His teeth gritted, but with every passing second the pain dulled until he couldn't feel it anymore and it was just the heat and the sweat clinging to his skin. “What happened?” he choked.

“You died,” Eren said. “And now you're back. So can we keep going?”

Jean licked his dry lips with his dry tongue. “Why are you okay?”

“God, the stupidity. Because I've trained my body not to die. You realize all this is an illusion, right? We only die because our bodies think we have to,” Eren said impatiently. “Because that's what would have happened on Earth. Well we're not on Earth, okay? I don't know where the fuck we are, but it's for forever. You got that? Or do you have any more lame-ass questions?”

“No,” Jean said shortly.

That's why Eren wasn't sweating. What the point of him taking off his shirt if he had trained his body not to react to the world? It wouldn't have cooled him down. _He took off his shirt just because he could,_ Jean thought. _To make me uncomfortable?_ Well it wasn't working. If anything, it was making him mad.

“So how did you kill your friend?” Eren said nonchalantly.

Jean tried to smack his fist into Eren's neck, but the boy moved and Jean's body was propelled through empty space. Next Eren planted a foot on Jean's ass and kicked him forward. “If you're tired of falling,” Eren said, “then stop trying to fight me. Really.” He nudged Jean's sides with his foot and walked on past him.

Slowly, Jean got up on his knees. He wiped some blood from his lip, then glanced down at it. It wasn't real? He wiped it on his pants and then started off after Eren, mouth curled into a furious frown, eyebrows pulled together.

Marco's face flashed in his head, covered in blood. “I don't want to talk about it,” Jean said.

“You going to cry?” Eren asked.

“At least I'm human enough to cry, you goddamn bastard,” Jean shouted at him. The tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. His bottom lip trembled, and the tears broke loose. “Marco was my best friend. And I killed him. I pulled him out of that burning car and I tried to bring him back, but he just stayed dead. You know the first time I met him?” The tears kept flowing, and his face grew red with every word. Eren watched with round eyes. “It was in elementary school and this kid was making fun of me. I was crying just like I am now. He called me fat and my mother and a whore. And Marco just came over, this kid I had never even talked to, he took my hand, pulled me over to the grassy part of the schoolyard, right under this oak tree, and he started telling me the worst goddamn jokes I ever heard in my life. But he got me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. He even wiped the tears from my face. 

“Every time I saw that bully, Marco would start telling me a story. That boy never left me alone after that. Like he just stayed around from that first time he met me. And no matter how pathetic I got, no matter how self-loathing or messy I got, he was always there to make me feel better with his stupid face and his fucking freckles and these jokes that were felonies. Because of me he is dead, and I will never get to tell him how sorry I was for pulling him into my shitty life. If I had just told him to fuck off the first day, then he'd be alive, and his family would be happy, and I may not have been happy, but . . . but . . .” Jean glared down at the sun-baked ground, his whole body trembling, his shins itching again. Suddenly he just ripped his pant legs off below the knee—it was all fake, so he could do it, and it came right off. The scratches burned on his skin, bleeding out in little streams and then losing steam. They formed dirty clumps. When Jean looked at his hands, they were bloodied.

And Eren was just standing there, eyes wide and unblinking. That mysterious breeze ruffling his hair even though Jean couldn't feel it himself.

Breathing hard, Jean finally looked up at Eren. “But it wouldn't have mattered I wasn't happy because Marco would have been. That's all I ever wanted for him. Because I love him.”

Eren's jaw clenched and then he turned away. “You loved him. Past tense. Both of you are dead now and far from each other.”

“You fucking asshole,” Jean half-whispered.

“All right, I'm a fucking asshole. But I learned a long time ago the sooner you let go of things that happened on Earth, the better life here will be. If you're going to survive here with your mind and soul intact, you have to do the same. You have to acknowledge that what happened on Earth happened and there's no changing it. Your Marco is up in Heaven, and he's happy. You just said that's all you wanted for him, right? Good. You got what you wanted.”

Jean shook his head slowly. “Mind and soul intact? You can say your soul is intact?”

“Yes I can,” Eren said firmly.

“That's another lie,” Jean growled.

The corner of Eren's mouth twitched. “Then why ask me? If you don't want my help, great. I'll be on my way. But if you want my help, then you have to realize this is Hell and you have to reshape yourself to survive in it. You have to be willing to do that. And you need the determination to get to what's at the end of this desert.” He pointed out ahead, seemingly at nothing, but definitely at something.

Jean followed his finger, even if he could only see the stark horizon where blue sky met orange dirt. “There's nothing there, is there?”

Eren said nothing. Jean watched how his hair moved in the wind, especially the locks around his eyes, how some of them were long enough to flick over the green orbs. Eren Jaeger had the most intense eyes Jean had ever seen. They could encompass the entirety of Hell and Earth with their intensity, with their passion. He'd spent 200 years in this place, he wasn't about to fall now. Not for some punk-ass kid named Kirschtein. And not for others who may follow in Jean's footsteps. Again Jean wanted to ask “Why?” but his mind closed that question in a cage.

“I'll go with you,” Jean croaked.

“Then my first word of advice,” Eren said, lowering his arm. “Stop hating yourself. It did wonders for me.” Their eyes locked and then Eren turned his back to him. “And I don't mean you can't feel sad about Marco. Or anything you did on Earth. Just stop feeling guilty about it. Guilt is the downfall of every person who's lost themselves here.”

Jean licked his lips again, and was surprised to find his tongue actually had moisture to give. He licked them some more and beyond his lips even until they were soft again. “Let me ask one question first. And you have to promise to answer it, no matter what it is.”

Eren lifted his chin. He chewed in lip again and then nodded. “Okay.”

“How did you die?”

At that, Eren lowered his head and smiled wryly. “There was a man. I saw him for 104 seconds. There had been rumors of the Spoon Master going around town. The man who gouged people's eyes out. I finally found him. In a little cabin by the ocean, owned by a friend named Armin Arlert. A good . . . good friend.” Eren looked up. “The last I saw of Armin alive, he was screaming for someone to stop. But the Master wouldn't so _I_ stopped him.” He laughed once. “And then I took a knife from Armin's kitchen and I had had enough experience to know just how fragile throats are.” He once again bit his lip. “Is that what you were looking for?”

A little line of red appeared on Eren's throat. The deeper it got, the more blood rushed out and over his torso. Jean gasped, but Eren seemed unfazed. He ran a finger in the liquid and looked at it. “This is what happens when you think about the past. It comes back to you.” And just like that the blood disappeared, and the cut.

Like Jean's shins. They tingled at the thought, but Jean shoved Marco's face out of his mind and focused on Eren's. “Is there any way out of here?”

“Out of Hell?” Eren asked. “I haven't tried looking for one.”

“Why not?”

Eren shrugged. “Just haven't.”

“That's your answer?” Jean said. “You just _haven't_.”

“You know, at this rate we'll never get there.” Eren looked out at the horizon. “Tell me, Jean,” he said as if offhand, “do you feel the heat anymore?”

Now that Eren mentioned it no. It was remarkably cool—he had his own personal breeze. And he wasn't sweating anymore. Jean glanced up at the sun, but it was still floating there, as bright and nasty as could be. 

Then like someone had broke the dam, the heat came back, as stifling and scorching as before.

Eren still looked fine and dandy. “Eventually you won't feel anything. Not cold or heat or pain. Just like me.” He smiled. “Unless you want to.”

“Why would I want to feel pain?” Jean asked with a disgusted face.

Eren stuck his tongue out. “God, really? Did you ever fuck your boy Marco?”

Jean jerked back. “What? No.”

“You ever fuck anyone? Woman, man, other?”

“I had a one night stand with some guy named Connie but what the hell does this have to do with anything?” Jean scowled.

“Pretty vanilla stuff, I'm assuming. All right, forget I said anything.” He slapped Jean on the arm again, which was really starting to bug Jean. “No cold or heat or pain. Nothing.” He gave Jean a suggestive look and started striding towards their horizon, arms swinging. Much bouncier and happier than one should walk across a scorching desert in Hell.

Jean followed at a safe distance. He wasn't in the mood to talk to Eren again so soon. Mostly because there was too much to think to himself. His mind was running rampant with too many thought threads. It all bundled up together in this big knotty mess. Despite the reprieve earlier that he hadn't had time to properly notice or enjoy, Jean couldn't make it happen again. The sun had started to burn into his skin, turning it a shiny pink-red, and his hair was drowning in salty sweat. On top of that, his legs were sore. They'd been walking for hours.

But ahead Eren Jaeger was walking like he had a full bar of energy, hair and body dry, tan skin untouched by the vicious teeth of the sunlight. Surely it wouldn't take Jean 200 years to reach that point. Surely Jean still wouldn't be in Hell in 200 years. If there was a way out, he'd find it. He had to.

Some people appeared, the raggedy ones, all on the ground in balls like before. Eren slipped his pants off and threw it to the ground. Two of them fought over the pair. Now the boy was just walking in these tiny tight brown shorts that blended with his skin tone so at a glance he looked naked. Sighing, Jean pulled his off as well and let some others fight over them. He only had on his black boxers. So the two of them, in nothing but underwear, walked across Hell's desert of fire.

Jean was on the brink of falling again when he saw it—the palm trees. Some taller than they should have been able to grow. And beyond, the ocean. Like the one Armin Arlert used to live next to. The hard ground turned to soft sand, not at all hot, and there was a wind, soft, gentle, the perfect warm temperature. The water was a mix of cyan and cerulean, gently washing up on the beach in a splatter of white foam.

The two of them walked through the trunks of the palm forest all the way up to the water. Jean pulled his shoes off and let the water splash over his feet and legs. He let out a gasp as instantly the thirst scratching at the back of his throat vanished and he just felt perfect. So perfect. Carefully he sunk to his knees, letting the water rush over them and spray onto his chest.

Eren's bare foot rested on Jean's back, and then suddenly Jean was choking up a quart full of salt water. When he flipped out, sending water into the air, he grabbed Eren's ankle and tried to pull him in, but Eren slipped it out and hopped back. “Was it worth it?”

“Yeah,” Jean said. He cupped some salt water in his hands and then dumped it on his head, rinsing out all the sweat. “Why don't you just stay here? Stay away from all the shit out there?”

“That'd be boring,” Eren said. “Besides, I have someone to visit and he can't very well come all the way out—shit!” He got down, and grabbed Jean's chin, making him look over down the beach, at a group of about five people, all dressed in white, coming towards them. One of them was running in and out of the waves, laughing.

“Demons?” Jean asked.

Eren nodded. His hand dug into the wet sand. “We're going to kill them.”

“What?” Jean gasped.

When Eren looked over, a mad glint at overtaken his eyes. “They'll just respawn in the Cage, but it'll take months for them to get back here. They'll be pissed.” A tongue swept over his lips in anticipation. “I may know one or two of them. With 200 years and pissy demons, it's easy to see familiar faces. They all want revenge. But they never get it.” He laughed and grabbed Jean's shoulder. “You want to join?”

Jean shirked his shoulder away. “No.”

Eren shook his head. “Fucking coward.”

This time, when Jean struck, it actually hit, right in the side of Eren's head. Jean followed it with a complete body slam, trying to straddle Eren so he could beat the living shit out of him. But Eren wasn't a novice, and he quickly got out from under Jean, kneeing him in the side and then grabbing the back of Jean's head and smashing his head down into the sand. He kept it there for a few seconds while he looked out at the approaching demons.

When he did release Jean—who started spitting up sand—he said, “I get it. You don't want to die. If you die here, or in any other neutral zone, there's no telling where you'll come back. Where you started. In between. Far far away. It's to keep you crawling back time and time again.”

Jean ignored the urge to hit him again. “And how are you going to kill them?”

“Snap their necks,” Eren said, as if it was blatantly obvious. The demons got closer, a couple hundred yards, and a flicker of recognition flashed in Eren's eyes. “Here they come.” He stood up and threw his hands in the air. “Reiner! Berthold! Been waiting for you.”

The demons all snapped their attention to Eren, who started walking towards them.

Eren's face got dangerous, his voice enraged. “How's working for Lucifer? How's it taking orders from the big guy, huh?” he shouted a them. He kicked some sand. “Does it make it easier to torture everybody here? What about you Berthold? You step on anyone today? Kick them into the ground?”

One of the demons—the tallest one—looked away.

“And you Reiner?” Eren yelled, spit flying from his mouth. “Did you beat anyone to a pulp today? Following the orders of your precious God?”

Another demon, blonde, started walking towards Eren. At his move, the others followed. Eren broke into a run, and Jean watched breathlessly as he entered into a fight with all five demons. The boy didn't move as fast as them, nor was he as strong. And his strategy was off, but he had more passion and drive than they did, a more worthy cause. By the time ten seconds had passed, two demons lay on the ground, their necks broken—including the one who had been running in and out of the ocean. The bodies whisked away into vapor.

It ended up a fight with Reiner and Berthold. At one point, Berthold got his arms around Eren and he held him up in the air while Reiner landed the punches. Every hit echoed in Jean's body. He couldn't just stand by as they beat Eren to a bloody mess. No matter how messed up the boy was, without him, Jean was alone. Jean couldn't handle being alone.

He got to his feet and ran towards them, his arm coming up and blocking one of Reiner's strikes. That gave Eren the window to lift his torso, wrapping his legs around Reiner's neck and throwing him down into the ground while simultaneously using the momentum to flip Berthold up over his head—at least partway. The most important thing was that Berthold let Eren go. They both landed on the sand in a tangle of limbs.

Jean jumped on Berthold's back and kept him down just long enough for Eren to grab the demon's head and snap his neck with one sure twist. That just left Reiner. Eren twisted his body and brought his hands up to deflect Reiner's attack. While they struggled, Jean came around the back and slipped his arms under Reiner's, just like Berthold had done with Eren earlier. Eren grinned at Reiner and then put his hands on the blonde's cheeks. “See you again, Reiner,” he said and then not only snapped his neck but tore Reiner's head from his body with seemingly inhuman strength. Then he hucked it farther down the beach.

The body dissolved from Jean's arms.

Eren laughed and kicked some sand as he spun in victory. “Reiner and Berthold. They used to travel with me. We used to all be the same. But then they decided to join the Legion. You don't know how angry I was when I found out.” He looked at Jean. “If you join the Legion I'll kill you too. Over and over again. I'll kill every fucking demon I see until Lucifer himself comes to stop me.” He drunkenly stumbled over to Jean, falling on his knees beside him.

“You're crazy,” Jean said.

“You know what's crazy?” Eren said, licking the corners of his mouth. “I'm stronger than a demon could ever be. They lose themselves in Hell. I . . . well, you remember what I said before?”

“Make Hell your bitch?” Jean said warily.

“Exactly.” Eren put a hand on the back of Jean's neck. “They're fighting, I'm playing. That's the difference. Are you willing to play, Kirschtein?” He smiled.

Jean's eyes widened.

Eren moved himself closer, both of his arms around Jean's neck, his legs half on top of Jean's. Again, he asked, “Are you willing to play, Kirschtein?” A hand came up and knotted itself in Jean's hair.

“You are a fucking psychopath,” Jean said, each syllable dripping out slowly and emphatically.

“Welcome to Hell,” Eren said, smile widening. He looked down at Jean carefully. “But really, give me an answer before I go crazy. I need an answer. Okay?” His fingers grabbed his hair a little tighter and suddenly Jean knew exactly what he had meant earlier, when he had said he wouldn't have to feel pain unless he wanted to.

 _Is this what Hell does to you?_ Jean thought to himself, because yes, he wanted to fuck Eren Jaeger, even though he had just watched the mostly-naked boy kill five demons with the ease of slicing bread, a grin on his face. He wanted to even though Eren Jaeger had been in Hell for 200 years because he was a serial killer and was just as insane as the rest of them, no matter what he said. He wanted to even though everything said he shouldn't. But like Eren had said earlier, Jean had to let everything go from Earth.

“Fine. Jaeger.”

It took Eren less than a second to bring his lips onto Jean's, moving with the fiery heat of the desert they'd walked through to get here, and hotter. It was difficult to not kiss back with the same violent passion. And even though Jean had only had sex that one time, made out with someone that one time, his body still knew exactly what to do. They didn't even need to worry about clothing because they were practically naked already.

Eren liked to bite. His teeth grabbed a hold of Jean's lips every few seconds. And when the lips weren't enough, his teeth nipped at Jean's jawline. Inhuman noises escaped Jean's mouth, totally unprepared for Eren's vigor, and for the way his body would react to him. Both of Eren's hands cupped Jean's cheeks and he continued his biting spree, planting the tiniest on his throat and then coming down to his collarbone. Jean's body spasmed unintentionally, his body curving, and Eren's body moving with it.

They fell back together, and Eren ran his mouth over every square inch of Jean's torso with an urgency and desperation of a man who hadn't had sex in 200 years. The thought sent Jean's mind running wild, and made his heart thunder like rocks in a landslide. He also made sex on a beach—what would otherwise be as grainy and nasty as possible—the only way to really have sex with someone. Like all other forms were inferior.

He brought his mouth back to Jean's, and down below, his fingers nudged Jean's boxers down. Jean lifted his hips so he could slide them off all the way and he tossed them away. His own followed. “Are you ready, Kirschtein?” he said sinfully, hovering over Jean.

Jean gazed back, almost a challenge in his eyes, and nodded the tiniest bit. He watched how Eren's body moved as the dark-skinned boy brought his face town towards Jean's legs, nudging them open. He teased Jean's ass, kneading it and flicking his tongue across his entrance. 

Eren brought his hand forward and presented Jean with three fingers and instructed him to suck. Jean took them, weaving some of his own in between as he obeyed, moaning a bit around Eren's fingers when Eren dipped his tongue into Jean's ass. Satisfied with the slick on his fingers, Eren slipped them away and started slipping them in, then another scissoring them.

A loud exotic moan seeped from Jean's lips as Eren added a third finger. Jean's legs came up around Eren without him really thinking about it. Eren grinned and slipped his fingers out. He lined himself up and slowly pushed himself in, fingers digging into the sand, arm muscles tensed. It probably took all his self-control not to go fast. Jean made him wait once he was fully in, just letting the moment soak in, watching Eren's arms tremble as he waited. Jean gave the tiniest gesture of approval and Eren proceeded at a brutal pace, snapping his hips into Jean. 

Both of them were loud, cursing out profanities, the name of the God in Heaven, or just shouting. They weren't even going for very long before Eren gripped Jean, quickly jerking him off as he continued ecclesiastically fucking Jean, hitting his prostate. The grip tightened, Eren's face screwed up in anticipation of the coming orgasm. After two hundred years, it didn't take much for him. He came first, releasing into Jean who followed shortly after.

Finally his arms gave and he collapsed onto Jean, panting against his neck, placing small sloppy kisses where he could reach. He was heavier than he looked, and Jean was tempted to shove him off, but for the moment, seeing that look in Eren's eyes—for the first time since Jean had met him, he didn't look crazy or angry or creepy. He looked so enormously satisfied and calm. More like a seventeen year old. Looking at him, Jean could almost believe they weren't on a beach in Hell, but on a secluded Caribbean beach, shamelessly fucking on the sand and not caring if someone caught them.

But then Eren pulled back up, hands in the sand on either side of Jean's face. He let out a long breath and brought his face down to Jean's their noses lightly touching. He grinned. “Thanks for that, Kirschtein. Two hundred years. You should actually consider yourself special. No one else has managed to catch my eye. Maybe it's the whole insanity Hell thing, yeah? Sex is so much funner when you're sinning in Hell.” His breath warmed Jean's lips, and Jean could still faintly detect Eren's aftertaste of dark earth and coconut.

“And you never got down on Marco Polo?” Eren asked.

Jean pushed him off and sat up. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Yeah?” Eren put his hands behind him and leaned back on them a little. “He wasn't in to you? Can't imagine why not.”

“You're an asshole,” Jean muttered. He stared at his boxers, a few feet away in a crumpled mess. There had been a time, just a little thing, when he and Marco had been at a motel on a skiing trip up in the Rockies. Jean had apprehended Marco's clean pair of boxers while Marco was showering. When they'd wrestled for it—Marco's towel fell off in the things had gotten a little personal, but someone had knocked on the door and they immediately got themselves situated. So it could have turned into something, but the chance was stolen from them. Eren was right—Jean was too much of a coward.

 _I'm a coward too for jumping off that building, aren't I? I should have died in that car with you, Marco_.

“Jean,” Eren said slowly, just as Jean felt the cuts in his shins. But before he could do anything, Eren was back near him, kissing him, pulling out that image of Marco with blood all over his face, right out of his mind and destroying it. Eren's hand rested on Jean's legs, feeling the cuts, feeling as they faded with the lengthening kiss. And then he pulled away and stared at the ocean. “That was on me.”

Jean fell back onto the sand, the tip of his hair licked by the tide. “I'm a coward.”

“Isn't everybody?” Eren said with a shrug.

“I shouldn't have agreed to that,” Jean said quietly.

Eren's eyes narrowed. “Then why did you if you're going to go and regret it? Start regretting things you did in Hell, too, and boy, you're really doomed to the worst quarter of this place. Really, that makes no sense. Regretting things you do in Hell.” He scoffed. “It just sounds so wrong. So stupid.”

“That's me. The stupid.”

Some sand flew onto his face and he made an angry noise. “Cut it out!” He put his arms under his head. “That Armin Arlert? Is he here?”

“So what if he is?”

“I think I saw him,” Jean said faintly.

“Of all the billions of people in Hell, you just happen to come across Armin? How likely.” His voice was laced with anger. There was some shuffling and when Jean looked over, suddenly Eren was fully clothed again.

Jean looked down at his naked body and felt self-conscious again. He sat up and brought his knees close to him. “You said his eyes were gouged out.”

“Lots of people have gouged out eyes.”

“How big is Hell?” Jean asked.

Eren made an annoyed noise. “Bigger than Earth. Why?”

“Just thought it was coincidental me meeting you right outside a room with a guy with missing eyes,” Jean said.

Eren looked down at his feet.

“Why is he in here?”

A creepy smile entered Eren's face. In a low voice, he said, “He was my strategist. He made sure I didn't do anything too stupid. Armin may not have held the dagger, but he killed those people just as directly as Mikasa and I did. He never had time to repent his sins. I never cared enough to try.” He glanced at Jean. “Are you going to sit there naked the whole time?”

Jean's face got red. He reached over and grabbed his boxers, slipping them on. They were filled with sand and grated against his skin, and most importantly, his nether region. As he kept readjusting, Eren started laughing. Jean cursed under his breath. “Are you going to tell me how to get more clothes? Aren't you supposed to be helping me?”

“I was helping myself,” Eren said, glancing at Jean's covered dick. “But if you really want clothes, you just have think about them. They'll always be the same, though. Always the clothes you last wore before you died. Or while you died.”

He pictured his clothes. Picture wearing them. But nothing happened.

“You're not trying hard enough,” Eren complained.

Jean glared at him.

“Need some help?” Eren started walking over but Jean put a hand up.

“You fucking come near me--”

“And what?” Eren said in pretend shock. “You'll snap my neck too and send me to God-knows-where? How awful!”

Jean's lip curled, but on the inside his stomach seized. _I'm not killing any more people, fake death or not._ “You know what? Fuck you. I'll find my way on my own.” He started walking away along the beach, hoping Eren would grab his hand, yank him back, beg him to stay. But of course that was ludicrous. Eren stayed right where he was, watching Jean go.

He managed to get maybe fifty feet before he stopped. Already he felt the loneliness sinking in, and it clawed at his insides. His arms wrapped around his torso. Eren was right. The creepy 17-year-old serial killer was right. If Jean went on by himself, not only would he die about a million times, but he would start thinking about Marco again and his life would spiral downwards until his mind had the capacity to feel one sensation: pain, whether mental or physical or spiritual. And he would be just like that girl he first saw, the one clawing at the wall until her fingernails were gone.

In fact, he had to call himself lucky. Lucky that on his first day in Hell he had met the one person who could actually help him make it more bearable. And he wouldn't cave and join the demons like Reiner and Berthold had. He could give up and shrivel into a shell of a man, but something told him that as long as he was near Eren, Eren wouldn't let him do that. He had already kissed him once to drive guilty thoughts of Marco away. Perhaps Eren would find a way to change that bloody image into a clean smiling one. Jean could feel sad, but not guilty.

Jean turned around. The boy was staring out at the ocean again, probably given up on Jean. _Am I that forgettable? Is is too easy to believe I'd give up?_ Jean held himself tighter. _No. I'm not going to fucking give in. I don't belong here. I don't care what I said before I came here. I am not a bad person. I am going to find a way out of here._ He stormed back to Eren.

Eren gave him a genuinely surprised look. “You're the first one who's ever done that.”

“The only way to make things right is make Hell my bitch and I'm getting the fuck out of here,” Jean said fiercely.

Eren's eyebrows raised.

“And when I do, you can come with me or stay here. I don't care. But I'm not going to sit and rot here. But _you_ ,” he said, pointing at Eren warningly, “aren't going to just push me around anymore.”

The corner of Eren's mouth lifted up in satisfaction. “Done.”

**Author's Note:**

> After so many requests to write more, I have decided that I most definitely will. At least two more installments of approximately the same length!
> 
> And random note, the first blonde is Krista, then it's Armin, then it's Annie.
> 
> Sometimes I think about how Eren has the body of a seventeen year old and the spirit of a 200 year old.


End file.
